Petersfield Town co-managers Connor Hoare and Callum Glen were pleased with their side’s composure from the spot after the Rams beat United Services Portsmouth in a penalty shoot-out.

The Rams won 5-3 on penalties after the two sides had played out a 0-0 draw at Love Lane in their Portsmouth Senior Cup second-round tie.

The victory extended Petersfield’s winning run in penalty shoot-outs to eight in a row, having beaten Havant & Waterlooville, Crawley Down Gatwick, Ringwood Town and Christchurch on penalties earlier this season and New Milton Town, Newport (IoW) and Fareham Town on penalties in the 2022-23 season.

“When we go to penalty shoot-outs at the moment the boys are full of confidence and fully believe that whatever goalie we've got in goal they're going to make one save and then it's down to them to technically execute what they need to do,” said Hoare.

“We've done that again and we're delighted to get through. It's another competition that we're looking to go far in and see where it takes us.”

“Across the penalty shoot-outs I don't think we've missed many,” said Glen.

“We've been quite good with the penalties. We've got a consistent order now. We've got lads who are confident to take one and concentrate on executing their technique.

“We've got five really good penalty takers who are comfortable – I don't think the United Services goalie got near any of the penalties.

“We’re delighted to get through and keep a winning habit. It doesn't matter what competition we're in, we want to win and get through.”

The Rams dominated possession and territory against United Services and had a number of promising openings, without managing to create many clear-cut chances against a United Services side which sat in and were hard to break down.

“We work very hard on creating the openings we created,” said Hoare.

“A lot of similar situations occurred consistently throughout the match and you've got to rely on the boys' quality from there to execute and finish the attacks – obviously we didn't do that well enough.

“We only had two or three actual chances. We had a lot of openings, territories and box entries.

“It's a bit of a weird game to analyse because United Services were sat on the edge of their box for 95 minutes, so there's not a lot of space.

“It's hard to attack but the main thing is we got through.”

Asad Ssemwogerere and Harrison Cable were lively throughout the match and offered a constant threat, and Glen was pleased with their efforts.

“I thought Asad and Harrison were a threat all night,” said Glen.

“Asad takes good care with his delivery, picks people out and passes to a lot of people, we just didn't have that quality to then score.

“I don't think the United Services goalie worked enough. Having said that it is difficult when teams sit in.

“The pitch isn't perfect so you've got to deal with that as well. We've had that a couple of times so we have to try to find more solutions.

“I feel we need to be a little bit more aggressive in the box to try to maybe cause some mistakes.

“We're creating the openings, we just need to start taking them because at the moment we're not.”

The closest the Rams came to scoring in the 90 minutes was when Dec Seiden hit the post in first-half stoppage time.

“It was a very different chance because it was from us regaining the ball and attacking quickly, which we've been excellent at all year,” said Hoare.

“I think that was probably the only time in the game that we had the opportunity to counter attack because United Services had the ball and were quite high up the pitch.

“We won it back and broke centrally really quickly. It was probably a tough chance to take because Dec was quite far out but if that goes in then United Services have to come out more and there will probably be more space for us.

“All the time it's 0-0 and they've got a lifeline of a penalty shoot-out they'll make it tough – and they did.”